Review-Brittany Needles

Some of you might know that Brittany offers a warranty on their needles and hooks. If you break one in "normal use" within 5 years of buying it, you can contact them for a free replacement.

On the website, it says it normally takes about two weeks to process a return. You'll see why this is important later.

I originally emailed them over six weeks ago because of a snapped DPN. I got a reply right away, and was hoping my new needle would be coming soon. Three weeks after that, I got another reply saying "Will send ASAP", when I'd assumed they had already sent the first time they emailed me. I tried calling a few times in between emails, left a message once, and never got any reply.

A week ago, I finally got the replacement. It was about six weeks from the original email to the time when I received the package.

They were very generous in sending me two new needles instead of one, and the product itself is great. These are some of my favorite sock needles to knit with. It's very nice of Brittany to offer a warranty at all, when many needle producers don't, but I was very unhappy with the customer service policy. Promising two-week return service that actually takes over a month is just unacceptable.

 
 
 
 

Post a Comment 2 comments:

Lisa said...

Getting something for free is unacceptable?

Cut these people a little slack. It sounds like you were dealing with shipping during the busiest time of the year.

January 13, 2008 at 1:03 PM

Jill said...

As I said, it is very generous for them to offer returns when a product breaks, as increasingly few manufacturers are doing.

I would not have minded the six-week return process if their return policy had stated an accurate time estimate. It's not the length of time that bothered me, it's misleading customers and not responding to phone calls.

At first I thought it was just the post being slow for the holidays, but after reading comments on a review forum, it turns out this isn't at all uncommon for the company. I wasn't the only one who complained about poor communication and slow returns. Some people waited much longer than I did, outside of high-volume periods.

January 14, 2008 at 1:29 AM

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